Champ Car Rant

Destination: Unknown

Ed Donath invites you to read and comment about his Op/Ed commentary.

Ed Donath

Champ Car Blog
 

Cairo, NY -- Not to make excuses, but it's pretty tough to keep ranting when so little is going on about which to comment.  In short, nothing is happening and nothing is likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

Yes, there's that deal out of Atlanta with the guy who recently purchased the Atlantics from Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven that will be using pre-owned Champ Car chassis mated to Cosworth turbo engines. But even news about that series -- scheduled for launch in less than four months -- has been as scarce as unicorns.

Like nearly every other industry these days, most of auto racing's problems are related to a downturn in the global economy. Some of the latest financial reports, however, indicate that the sports business, as a whole, is actually doing pretty well here in the USA.

Obviously, there is no replacement for strong TV packages and major consumer product sponsorships. Nonetheless, local loyalty, inter-city rivalry, a vast media base and ubiquitous licensed merchandise marketing are largely responsible for the decent ticket sales and Nielsen ratings enjoyed by stick and ball sports.


Would a withdrawal from NASCAR by cash poor domestic automakers boost fan interest in other forms of racing or would self-professed red-blooded Americans be just as complacent about their Good Old Boys turning Japanese as f-inheritor's Kool-Aid drinkers have been? This renegade scribe's best guess: the latter.

Regardless, stock car racing is as much or perhaps more of a destination event series as the CCWS was. Even with normalization of gasoline prices, the trickle-down effect of a sour economy will force motorsports fans to cut back on their racing trips in an effort to save on expensive food, lodging, souvenir-buying and other ancillary costs.

 

For the first time ever auto technology is actually working against open-wheel racing's return to sports viability.  No longer a culture that loves its cars and craves more and more horsepower, people in the major car-buying demographics spend their time wondering about the automotive future. 

 

Wondering how far they will we be able to travel without a plug-in.  Wondering whether they can actually get over 25mpg in a full-size SUV hybrid with seven passengers on board.  Wondering if any banks will be left willing to give them an auto loan. 

 

Watching our grandchildren play soccer instead of baseball irks many Boomers.  But not as much, perhaps, as watching them play tee-ball instead of real beginner's baseball; not as much as seeing parents drag their kids to places where, instead, they could play hard at real games all day with little or no parental involvement. 

 

The tee-ball example is analogous to what motorsports might be in the future.  When all is considered it doesn't look good for the traditional fans of our beloved speed sport who are all dressed up with nowhere to go.

 

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© Copyright Ed Donath

November 23, 2008

All rights reserved.

 

READER COMMENTS...

 

Interesting times ahead for motorsports in the forseeable future... It could very well end  up going back to where motorsport racing doesn't go overseas and looks more like club racing where cars from the 90's 80's and 70's will be the mainstream event, no flyovers to exotic locations like the Gold Coast and crowds well under 100,000.

Corona CC (Paul)
Victoria, Australia

CCWS was a "destination event series?" Not hardly.

 

Anonymous

[Of all the arguable things I've written over the years you choose this one to discredit?  I attended CART and CCWS events for 25 years and not a single one of them was ever closer than 150 miles from my home. - ED]

The erl is already tee-ball, but I get your point. We old school race fans, just hope for more. More than a bunch of cars goin roundy round. NapCabs don't cut it for us, nor does the idiot grandsons playground. The Atlantics are nice, but will never be the premier Open Wheel series we crave. And at this rate, I don't know if we will ever see that again. This GreenPrix thing seems to be on the right track, but who knows if it will achieve what we really crave?

I disagree that the cost of food is a reason that folks don't go to races. They still have to eat if they stay home, don't they?? And for your point of auto technology working against OWR returning to viability, I would agree with you except I have never heard a fan complain that "the cars don't get good enough mileage, so I am not going to watch these 900 HP cars, race!"

To make another point, I read an article in the WSJ, (I think), that advised business owners to use the term "Green" any way they could, because, as the article explained, "It just makes good business sense to use Green to promote your widget." I am just throwing that out there.

I truly think that CCWS was closer than most want to think of killing off the erl, once and for all. They had the cars, the TV thing was turning around, and sponsors were sniffing around, new teams were buying cars and more. But the small penis dudes in charge, instead of seeing the big picture, decided to piss on each others sleeping bags, in lieu of building their brand and forging ahead, with that "Damn the Torpedo's" approach. stg knew just how close they were, but back to the point, it's going to take a lot to get back to where CC was when they folded. And that's the sad part. It will make that hill just that much harder to climb for Ben J...


Ronbo,
West and North
Washington State

I'll side with neither OJ Simpson, Jerry Forsythe, or anyone who has screwed the fans.

I won't side with Kalkhoven for two reasons
1. Mergification
2. Taking the Cosworths for his Asia series

I will side with the Champ Car fans who want to see good racing.

FTG.

Ehud

Tucson, AZ


P.S. Happy ThanksGiving!  (Oh and yes, tongue and cheek)

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